


The Universe Reveals Its Teeth

by QueerCrusader



Series: Sifki Week 2018 [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, But also during Thor, F/M, Not Much Shipping, Pre-Thor (2011), how do I even tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 20:56:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15276027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueerCrusader/pseuds/QueerCrusader
Summary: "It's a Lucky Stone," Loki declared gravely. "To protect you."Part of Sifki Week 2018.Day 3 - Objects





	The Universe Reveals Its Teeth

Loki and Sif were merely toddlers they ran across Asgard’s beach together for the first time. They had no troubles, no worries. They were strong, and curious, and loved. Their wills were powerful even at such a young age, both children stubborn and vocal. They were best friends.

They might not have any care in the world, but Loki had heard many a horrific bedtime story from Frigga and many a cautionary tale on ruling a universe from Odin. Part of him knew there were Scary Things out there, even if he did not know truly how scary things could be. How dark the hidden spaces between reality would stain his soul one day.

Loki knew there were Scary Things. He wondered if Sif knew too. He could be a King one day, and she his Queen. She could be in danger.

His short legs carried him to her side as fast as they could, his hand stretched out. Sif’s eyes were wide as he approached, filled with glee. Loki made her laugh, even through simple things such as running funnily on the pebble beach, and that made him happy in turn. But that was not what was his mission right now.

On his outstretched hand lay a pebble he had picked up from the foam of the waves that washed up on shore. It was his favourite rock of all the rocks he’d scoured that day. Pale and speckled, it seemed to almost glow in the afternoon sun. The shadows of the nebulas high up in the sky shifted across its surface, making it light up in all the colours of the Rainbow Bridge.

“It’s a Lucky Stone,” he declared gravely. “To protect you.”

Sif’s forehead wrinkled with questions too big for such a young child. “Against what?” she asked.

“Scary Things.”

“And what says,” she spoke with a toothy little grin, “that I can’t protect myself? I am tough. I’m going to be Warrior Sif!”

“Yeah,” Loki agreed, “but luck can go a long way.”

They were so young when exchanging pebbles, jabs and gleeful shrieks in the washing tide of the Impossible Sea of the Realm Eternal. Millenia had passed, and the children had grown. Their worries had grown with them as the universe had revealed its teeth, showing them the Scary Things their parents had warned them of at night.

The pebble beaches were far behind and worlds away as Sif now ran, not through the foam of the waves, but across blistering asphalt in a nameless little Midgardian town. The universe had revealed what she should be afraid of, and from the fog of nightmares had come forward a familiar face, genuine worry marring his brow as he whispered lies and desperately tried to hold together the pieces of his fracturing mind. He had sent machinery to destroy his brother, another of Sif’s friends. When Thor had been banished she had to make a choice, and chose for the prince who still had a promise of being able to clean up the messes he’d caused.

She stood face to face to that choice now, grinning without mirth a giant mechanical foe, knowing her past was staring back through those hollow metal eyes.

“Keep it distracted.”

As she rained hell down upon it, thrusting her double-edged blade through the machine’s heart, a spark of hope – or perhaps a stab of guilt – lit up in her chest. But she should have known better than to think she could best the Trickster God of Lies.

She knew, though. Before the Destroyer came back to life, before the mechanics started whirring, something burned, something kept in a little pouch tied around her neck. The ropes tugged against her throat, and the struggle to wedge her sword free began a fraction of a moment before the machine stirred. She only managed to break free and dodge the blow because of the little pouch around her neck.

A pouch that contained an ancient pebble, which she carried into every battle.

A boy had given her a Lucky Stone to protect her from the Scary Things, never guessing that one day, it’d be he she’d need protecting from.

**Author's Note:**

> Come stalk me on [tumblr](https://queer-crusader.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
